Albert Nessim's Bio
Spoken Like a True English Gentleman
Of somewhat diminutive stature, he speaks with a refined British accent in a voice so soft one sometimes must strain to hear. He oozes gentleness of spirit and yet possesses a razor-sharp wit. He peppers his daily conversation with "oh-so-British" sounding turns of phrase; such as, "I simply could not fathom it." In lighter moments, he is likely to launch into one of his multiple impersonations: He can give convincing imitations of heavily accented English as spoken by people from Russia, Israel, Germany, France, India, or Morocco. He is familiar with any number of foreign accents, having lived and attended school in five countries on three continents during his youth.

A Rich Jewish Heritage
The scion of an aristocratic British family? No, it is Albert Nessim—CJFM missionary to his adopted homeland of Israel, where he labors with Ruth, his wife. The eldest of four children, Albert was born of well-to-do Jewish parents: an Iraqi textile merchant, Jacob, and a French-Italian Jewess named Victoria (reared in Cairo, Egypt)—a woman conversant in over a half-dozen languages!

Born in Kobe, Japan, on April 3, 1933, Albert has never actually resided in Iraq, which his father, Jacob, had departed to seek his fortune abroad. In truth, Jacob had left Iraq without regret, having escaped almost certain forced conscription into the Iraqi army (then at odds with Turkey)—to say nothing of the general anti-Semitic sentiment, which could cruelly claim the life of an Iraqi Jew without warning.

Still, Albert traveled on an Iraqi passport for almost two decades before finally being stripped of his citizenship by Baghdad in 1952.

Though reared by strict, Orthodox parents in Iraq, Albert's father (along with wife Victoria) chose by contrast to establish a "free and easy" Jewish home. Albert and his siblings, of course, knew that they were Jewish, observing as they did the High Holy Days. In addition, at age thirteen Albert received his Bar Mitzvah in Bombay, India.

A Storybook Childhood: Living All Over
By the time he left Japan for Egypt (in 1938) at the age of five and a half, Albert already knew English and Japanese (the latter taught him by his beloved live-in Japanese nanny, Hana-san). He remembers living for three very pleasant years in the center of Cairo, attending several schools—including Victoria College, known as "The Eton of Egypt." He recalls learning of the outbreak of World War II, and in his mind's eye, he can still see his mother and grandmother whispering to each other about the front-page newspaper photographs of a man "with a square mustache on the upper lip and that slanted hairdo across his forehead."

After Cairo, the next stop for the Nessims was British India—by means of a camouflaged British Airways seaplane—but not before a refueling stop on the Sea of Galilee in the Holy Land, then known as "British Mandated Territory of Palestine." In Israel for the first time, Albert felt very much at home, but not understanding why. "I knew it had some vague connection in my mind with the Passover feast and my being Jewish," he recalls.

Their final destination? The populous and bustling commercial city of Bombay—located on the Arabian Sea in Maharashtra State on the western coast of the Indian subcontinent, where the Nessims spent five and a half years before relocating to Europe.

Snapshots of Life in India
As anyone who has ever read much Rudyard Kipling understands, India is a virtual kaleidoscope of contrasting languages, cultures, and religions. In that land, Albert found himself a classmate and playmate of Europeans, Hindus, Muslims, Parsees, as well as other Jews.

During their years in India—and of their own accord—Albert and Elie (his brother who was next in age) regularly attended Shabbat and High Holy Day services at Bombay's Eliahu Synagogue, an Iraqi Jewish congregation. Albert remembers: "Iraqi Jews were prominent in Bombay."

Again attending several schools in a short span of time, Albert's first educational experience in India occurred in a Catholic parochial school. It was here that he personally came face-to-face with something virtually every Jew encounters eventually: overt anti-Jewish bias. One day during morning break, and without provocation, a schoolmate greeted him: "You dirty Jew. You killed Christ." This accusation was foreign to Albert. "What's he blaming me for something like that?" he wondered. "I couldn't figure it out."

At his next school, Albert lived away from home, in the town of Puna, across the mountains from Bombay. Here he and younger brother Elie attended Bishops High School, an Anglican boarding school, where he remembers hearing the Gospel clearly presented for the first time.

Conversion and Work
As a young man living in London, Albert came to faith in Yeshua through the patient witness of his brother Elie (read his testimony). This development broke the heart of his mother (who was by then living with him in London) and aroused the ire of his father, who sent scathing letters from India where he had returned to business endeavors.

In desperation, Victoria required both Albert and Elie to defend their faith in Jesus before several of London's leading rabbis. While he had not come to Christ quickly, once he had found Him Albert was absolutely unswerving in his determination to follow his Messiah—with or without parental (or rabbinical) approval!


Albert Nessim's Testimony
A Globetrotting Family
In a sense, Albert Nessim went through his first two decades of life as a man without a country. His well-to-do, textile-trading father, in his pursuit of profit, took Albert and his family to several exotic corners of the globe. God used this semi-transient lifestyle to bring Albert into contact with Christians and the Gospel early in life, and finally to faith in Yeshua HaMashiach as Savior and Messiah.

An Impressive Educational Resumé
The context in which Albert first encountered Christians was educational. The list of institutions at which he matriculated reads like a Who's Who of elite schools, including a private kindergarten run by a British woman in Kobe, Japan; The Church Missions to the Jews School and Victoria College in Cairo--the latter dubbed "The Eton of Egypt"; a Catholic parochial school in Bombay; Bishops High School, an Anglican boarding school in Puna, India; a French language boarding school near Montreux, Switzerland; and, finally, the renowned Haberdasher's Aske's School for Boys in London. Clearly, Albert's boyhood educational credentials are topnotch.

Short Stints in Christian Missions Schools In Egypt and India
Albert had his first brush with Christian education in Cairo, where for a short while he attended The Church Missions to the Jews School. Here (although he perhaps never actually heard the Gospel) Albert felt very comfortable, because he sensed an atmosphere of genuine love and happiness.

The next school to make a spiritual impact on Albert (and a large one at that) was in India. At the age of ten, Albert left his Bombay home for the Maharashtran city of Puna—together with his younger brother Elie—to attend Bishops High School. Albert reminisces: "The headmaster was a high Anglican priest, and his wife was a fiery evangelical, whom we called 'Mammy Cooper.'" Her area of instruction was teaching Bible to the boys from Christian families. However, she very cleverly told the boys from Hindu, Muslim, Parsee, and Jewish families to read quietly in the back of her classroom as she taught the others. As a result, these "boys in the back" all the while were exposed to the Gospel though scarcely realizing it.

Albert remembers learning of the heroes of both the Old and New Testaments from Mammy Cooper's lips. He also remembers her speaking of the Cross. "And when she came to the Lord Jesus, she declared [Albert raises his voice forte pianissimo, staccato], 'ONE MAN FOR THE SIN OF THE WHOLE WORLD!' I just couldn't understand it. I said to myself, 'How fantastic! How can that be?' But now I know."

There is no doubt that there was method in Mammy Cooper's deliberately indirect approach: She was able to plant the seed of the Word in the hearts of many boys from non-Christian homes without alienating the parents. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. And, as Albert aptly puts it: "My brother and I are saved today."

The Hymns at Haberdasher's
Following three years in a Swiss boarding school nestled between the Alps and Lac Leman, Albert and Elie, at their father's initiative, returned in 1950 to a British educational setting. This time, it was not in the far-flung reaches of the Empire-but in the heart of England itself. (Since their parents remained abroad, the brothers stayed in London with another Iraqi Jewish family.)

While attending the prestigious Haberdasher's Aske's Hampstead School in London, a day school founded in 1690—where many of the boys sported straw "boaters"—the Jewish Albert again remembers being allowed to "sit out" the routine Christian exercises—in this case, morning assembly, which included hymn singing. The room to which he was assigned during assembly period was upstairs in the same building, allowing him to overhear the strains of the singing down below. He remembers his heart being touched by the profound beauty of the sacred hymnody and wondering to himself why the Jews had no such music in their synagogues.

Brother Elie Confronts Albert with the Good News
When Albert was in his early twenties still living in England, Elie told him that he had become a believer in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. More than a little upset, Albert tried to show his younger sibling his error. In his determination to prove Elie wrong, Albert set upon a reading regime—perusing both the Old and New Testaments in search of ammunition. His studies only tended to confirm the veracity of Elie's clear testimony; and after months of fighting the Holy Spirit's conviction, Albert knelt down and received Jesus as his Messiah.

Weathering his parents' deep dismay at the news of his new faith, Albert went on with the Lord. In 1958, he felt called to take the Gospel to his fellow Jews, and later attended Bible College and met his wife, Ruth, in the process. His calling to reach Jewish people eventually brought him (along with Ruth and their children) to their adopted homeland of Israel where today they live, work, and minister for the Lord.